of organizational design in a public
administration. A very generic defini­
tion of a PMO—as an entity dealing with
multiple projects—has been adopted
in this research and had allowed for
the capturing of multiple loci of proj­
ect management activities in a public
administration through a survey. This
article proposed a conceptual frame­
work for the categorization of PMOs
based on four project types: engineering
and construction, information systems
and technology, business processes, and
new product/service development. The
framework also proposed four compo­
nents to describe the PMO categories:
organizational characteristics, project
characteristics, functions, and perfor­
mance. A quantitative methodology was
adopted and based on a survey in one
government.

The main findings suggest that this
categorization discriminates quite well
between PMOs. These findings have
important implications for decision
makers, particularly in public admin­
istrations where PMOs are often spe­
cialized in the delivery of a specific
type of projects by department. Gover­
nance and coordination mechanisms
might be adapted to the characteristics
of PMOs—some being experienced in
project management and, others, at a
lower level. Training in project manage­
ment might be essential in some PMOs,
while optional in others. Given the dif­
ferences in strengths and weaknesses
between PMOs in the same govern­
ment, some learning opportunities may
be developed between PMOs.

Second, and over and above thestrict design of a PMO, the article showshow a government can use research aspart of its process to answer the difficultquestion: How do we organize for proj­ect management in public administra­tion? Given that there are no modelsthat can simply be copied and pasted inany context work has to be done to con-struct a local PMO solution; however,such a solution might be only tempo­rary, as previous research has shown(Aubry et al., 2011). Being prepared forchange means being aware of the envi­ronment in order to anticipate changingneeds so that projects can be carried outsuccessfully.

An important limitation of this
research is the lack of context due to the
quantitative approach. Although statisti­
cal analysis provides sound differences
between project types, it misses the
rich data needed to fully interpret the
results and provide more generalization
to other similar public administrations.
Classification systems are criticized for
this lack of cultural sensitivity (Glynn &
Navis, 2013). In the same vein, having
data from a single government imposes
limitations in terms of generalization;
however, we believe that making sense
of these findings in any context will
help inspire us to find a proper solu­
tion in terms of organizational design.
Moreover, the method employed could
be replicated in other governments or
industries to complement the results.
Furthermore, the confidentiality of the
case study has the consequence of no
possibility of situating the political and
cultural dimensions in the discussion.
We are convinced that these dimensions
are important enough to be considered
when addressing a governmental case
study. This limitation refrains from
developing a global understanding of
the case.

This research opens up several
opportunities for future research. First,
as mentioned in the introduction, proj­
ect management scholars should diffuse
more of their work on organizational
design through the main stream of
organization literature. There is a gap
in the organization literature when it
comes to understanding new forms of
organizing—the project management lit­
erature should address some of these
issues. Second, the focus of the research
on organizational design should move
to exploring the process of organizing
for projects, in other words, move from
the project organization to project orga­
nizing. Third, this research would ben­
efit from the practice theory, such as
the toolkit proposed by Nicolini (2013).

Actually, not that much is known on the
process of designing a PMO in a practice
view.

Acknowledgments

The researchers wish to warmly thank
the participants who gave of their time
to complete the questionnaire. We
would also like to thank the govern­
ment for its financial support for this
research. Our special thanks go to Carl
Saint­Pierre who provided invaluable
guidance for statistical analysis.

References

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Artto, K. A., & Wikstrom, K. (2005).

What is project business? International
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